(published in Dallas Morning News Feb. 20, 2003)

Children’s welfare is at risk
(The following OpEd was written by Dr. Kurt Senske.)

Pay now or pay later. That is the dilemma facing Texas legislators as they confront a $10 billion budget shortfall.

Unless we act, some of the people most affected by the 7 percent across-the-board budget cuts are those who have no voice. Specifically, the abused and neglected children of Texas are likely to suffer.

Reports of child abuse continue to rise in Texas. And, unfortunately, as the economy worsens, as more families’ budgets are strained, as jobs are lost and hours are reduced, that trend is likely to worsen.

Cutting the budget of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, particularly in the area of child protective services, is a short-term solution with long-term consequences.
Many studies have documented that the great majority of men and women in prison were victims of abuse and neglect as children. If we want to reduce the prison population and the accompanying social costs, we must break the cycle of child abuse. We can pay now, or we can pay significantly more later.

Lutheran Social Services of the South has more than 350 foster homes and four residential treatment centers for children with severe emotional and behavioral problems stemming from abuse and neglect.

With nearly 1,000 abused children in our care and with frequent requests from the state to open more foster homes and expand our treatment centers, we are well aware that child abuse in this state has reached epidemic proportions. Yet the budget for the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services - already inadequate - is on the chopping block.

In recent months, we have read and heard many news reports about failed child welfare systems in other states. Poorly funded agencies, staffed with low-paid, overworked, burned-out employees, have lost hundreds of children in the system. Some children were found only after they suffered horrific deaths. Some have yet to be found. Surely, Texas doesn’t want to join that dubious legion.

If indeed the budget for the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services is cut, who will be denied services?

Will it be 13-year-old Patricia, a resident of one of our treatment centers who entered the foster care system after her younger sister accused their father of molesting her?

Will it be Jorge, an 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who fell out of bed during a seizure and lay on the floor for a day before his mother checked on him?

Will it be Tamika, 10, who was abandoned at a hospital because her family couldn’t deal with an autistic, mentally retarded child?

Will it be Justin, 6, and his brother Michael, 5, who were rescued from a filthy home where they were starved and ignored?

Now isn’t the time for Texans to turn their backs on our most vulnerable citizens, children who already have been victimized by people who were supposed to take care of them.

Now is the time to reassure Patricia, Jorge, Tamika, Justin and Michael that we care and that their lives matter.

Kurt Senske is president and chief executive officer of the Austin-based Lutheran Social Services of the South.